Fast pyrolysis of aspir oil seed with aluminum-loaded montmorillonite catalyst

Population growth and industrialization on the World increased demand for energy rapidly. Fossil fuels cause climate change and increase in carbon dioxide emissions while renewable energy sources offer sustainable solutions due to being environmentally friendly. Biomass is considered as an important renewable energy source. Biomass can be converted to energy via thermo-chemical and bio-chemical/biological methods. Pyrolysis which is one of the thermo-chemical process can be used to convert biomass to bio-oil. In this experimental study, safflower seed was used as a biomass source. Fast pyrolysis experiments were carried out at different pyrolysis temperatures (400 °C, 500 °C, 550 °C, 600 °C, 700 °C) at heating rate of 300 °C/min and at a 100 cm3 /min N2 flow rate to obtain the highest bio-oil yield. The catalytic pyrolysis experiments were performed by montmorillonite catalyst with 10% aluminium at pyrolysis temperature of 300°C, 400°C, 500°C, 550°C and 600 °C to investigate the effect of pyrolysis temperature on the bio-oil yield. The highest oil yield was obtained as 40.75% at 550°C. The catalytic fast pyrolysis experiments revealed that safflower can be used as a renewable raw material for synthetic bio-oil production.